Found You
by caudipteryxzoui
Summary: A tale of the times Rex finds Luke. (The last time is for keeps.) Luke/Rex slash. Written for beatrice otter.


"Are you Skywalker?"

Luke shifts his attention away from the stolen Imperial shuttle they will use to land their strike team on the Endor moon and towards the voice asking the question. He's been running routine pre-flight checks—unnecessary ones, given that the Rebel Alliance, though perennially resource-stretched, did have technicians to handle the basic stuff—but it's given him something to do besides brood.

Now, though, he has something, or rather some_one_ else, in the form of a grizzled old soldier, to keep him occupied. The old soldier is bald, but his luxuriously thick white beard more than compensates for the absence of hair on his head, and he's wearing camo gear, so he must be a part of the strike team. The old soldier's expression is scrunched and slightly cranky, storm clouds threatening to gather over his brow, and with a start Luke realizes the old soldier is a clone.

And not just any clone either. One of _the_ Old Republic era clones for whom the Clone Wars were named. Luke has never seen one in person before.

"Well, shit." The storm clouds on the old soldier's brow clear as he takes in Luke's appearance, keen eyes stopping to rest for a moment on the lightsaber clipped to his belt. He laughs, loud and hearty. "Pleased to meet you. Name's Rex," the old soldier—Rex—says as he holds out his hand.

"Luke, which I suppose you already know. Nice to meet you too," Luke replies. They shake, and through the electronic sensors of his prosthesis, Luke to can feel the reassuring warmth and strength of Rex's grip.

"You're the spitting image of Anakin. I almost didn't want to believe it. They weren't supposed to have kids, you know. The Jedi. But Anakin was always so…well." Rex gives a little shrug.

Luke blinks. Something in his chest tightens and starts to ache. "You…you knew my father?"

"Yep. Served with him during the war. Wish I'd been there when he…well. If he hadn't gone in alone there at the end, maybe he'd still be alive today. He was—"

A cacophony of chatter and shouted orders interrupts whatever Rex means to say. Han, Leia, and the rest of the strike team are assembling. "Kid, could use some help over here!" Han calls out.

Luke gives Rex a hurried apology. As he heads over to Han, he's almost grateful for the interruption. That brief exchange was enough to make it clear that Rex does not know about Darth Vader, and Luke isn't yet certain it would be a good idea to tell him…

…but he isn't certain, at the moment, whether or not he'd be able to resist telling him anyway.

Maybe there will be time to exchange stories later. Luke decides he'd like that. Rex seems nice; Luke would like to get to know him better. He can only hope Rex will seek him out again.

* * *

Rex does.

He'd seen the smoke from the funeral pyre rising up in the distance and comes to investigate, apparently. By the time he arrives at the forest clearing, the fire is smoldering and nearly extinguished.

"Luke, is that you? What are you doing?" Rex huffs as he pushes through a particularly prickly bit of undergrowth.

Luke is sitting on the ground in a daze, spirit drained, mind empty. The events of the day have finally overtaken him, and he does not acknowledge Rex when Rex crouches down beside him.

"Are you okay? What happened?" Rex shakes Luke's shoulder gently. "Hey, come back."

Abruptly, Luke throws himself into Rex's arms and starts to cry. "My father—he's dead," he says between sobs. "I shouldn't grieve. I know I shouldn't. He's not lost. But I can't stop."

"I've seen a lot in my life, you know. So you shouldn't be ashamed. Sometimes it can take years to even acknowledge what you've lost. Grieving doesn't always happen right away or all at once."

"I-I…I should…I should explain—"

"Shhh, you don't have to explain. No explanations required, okay? I'm here for you, as long as you need," Rex says. One hand cradles Luke's head while the other strokes up and down the length of his spine.

Rex doesn't understand, not really, that Anakin Skywalker died today and not two decades ago, but he stays with Luke, soothing his tears until they've been exhausted regardless. It feels good to be held, good for both of them, and neither of them seems to want to be the first to pull away. Something small and fragile and precious and _new _is rising out of these ashes of death and destruction. Luke presses closer to Rex, needing, _needing_, and senses the change in him, feels him begin to _respond_. This new thing could grow, could flourish, if given half a chance.

"Thank you for finding me," Luke whispers.

They don't let each other go.

* * *

Rex finds him again later that evening as the victory celebration at the Ewok village begins to wind down. "I've saved you a spot in one of the furball huts," Rex says gruffly. "It's not exactly spacious, but it's better than having to sleep out in the open."

Luke would not have minded a night spent underneath the stars and the rubble of the destroyed Death Star, but he thanks Rex sincerely for his consideration and follows his lead to the little house in the trees he's apparently succeeded in commandeering. "Not exactly spacious" proves to be an understatement—Luke suspects the primitive edifice is basically meant to be storage shed—but there's enough space on the floor for the two of them to sleep, and the little door, when closed, gives them peace and privacy.

They both know what's going to happen, but Rex seems hesitant, avoiding Luke's eyes, so Luke makes the first move. The kiss is hot and sweet, and it goes on and on and on. Perfect. Just what Luke needs to remind him of what's truly important in life.

Rex is the first to come up for air. "Ugh, this feels an awful lot like robbing the cradle. If your mother didn't kill me, your father definitely—"

"My father loves us both, and he wants us to pursue our happiness wherever it might lead."

Rex doesn't notice Luke's little slip, talking about his father in the present instead of the past, but Luke supposes that's understandable. He senses the urgency in Rex, the eagerness, and he shares it.

"You, uhh, you aren't going to regret this in the morning, are you?" Rex asks. He looks adorably unsure in spite of his body's ardent natural response to Luke's.

"No. I want this. I want _you_."

They make love while the galaxy celebrates all around them. The joy of the free, of the liberated, of the newly hopeful, reverberates through the Force like music, like laughter, like shouts of pleasure, and if in the end neither of them can tell the difference between the fireworks exploding in the sky outside and the explosions of ecstasy which wrack their bodies, it's understandable.

* * *

Luke wakes to the sound of snoring.

The snores rattle along like an ancient, beat up landspeeder engine which refuses to turn over despite repeated yanks of the ignition lever. (Luke may have dealt with more than one of these in his callow youth on Tatooine.) Then the snores quiet, and Luke has just enough time to settle back into his pillow, ready to relax and enjoy the blessed silence before the snores resume abruptly with renewed vigor.

This pattern of snoring punctuated by occasional silence continues, and for several repetitions Luke simply listens to it without taking action, savoring the utter banality of a life lived—and a night slept—beside a lover who snores so fearlessly, unafraid of who might hear.

_Did all clones snore?_ Luke wonders. The corner of his lip quirks upwards at the thought of the ruckus an entire battalion of identical men snoring in unison would make. _Surely their makers would have viewed noisy sleep as a deficiency and selectively bred it out of them! Or maybe they only started snoring later in life, after their intended use date had expired. Or maybe they were never intended to live so long…period_.

Well, if so, he and Luke have that in common: two unintended byproducts of the Clone Wars who'd crossed the great, wide galaxy and had, against all the odds, found each other.

"Hey," Luke murmurs as he slides a hand along that broad, barrel chest with its burnished skin and sprinkling of soft, snowy hair. "Roll over. You're snoring. The Ewoks will think someone's sawing down their trees."

Rex half-wakes with a grumble, mutters something unintelligible, and turns toward Luke, throwing an arm over his shoulder and pulling him close. Luke settles into the reassuring warmth of the embrace, bare skin against bare skin. He nuzzles Rex's beard with his nose as their legs tangle familiarly together.

"There you are. Found you," Rex says, his grip on Luke tightening possessively.

The snoring stops altogether for awhile.

END


End file.
